Detailed SEO checklist for website development

Website development and optimization is a complex process that includes many nuances that affect not only the convenience of the website for users, but also its successful promotion.

Let's take a closer look at the main recommendations and best practices for technical website optimization, which will help make the resource more search engine friendly, increase its relevance and conversion.

Aspects considered include SEO optimization of content, setting up robots.txt and sitemap files, working with redirects, loading speed, adaptability, use of micro-markup and other important points.

1. Closing a site from indexing

When developing a website on a domain or subdomain, while the site is not yet ready for publication, it is recommended to close it for maintenance and from indexing by search engines.

The correct robots.txt for search engines with no indexing:

2. Setting up the Robots.txt file

When the site is ready, in the Robots.txt file we close it from indexing:

admin sections, filters and sorting, cache, logs, cart, pages with parameters that we do not want to index.

Allow for indexing:

js, css, images, pdf, doc, xls files.

Add a link to the sitemap sitemap.xml
https://yandex.ru/support/webmaster/controlling-robot/robots-txt.html
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=ru&ref_topic= 6061961

3. Setting up a sitemap Sitemap.xml

To simplify the process of indexing by search engines, it is recommended to use an automatically updated sitemap in XML format. This will allow you to quickly add new pages to the index.

4. Code in the template (code validity)

The page template is built according to the following rules:

1. All opening tags must have closing tags.
2. Nesting must be logical and finite.
3. If there are no important tags or closing tags, the layout may fail. There may be problems with code validation, and some important points such as micro markup may not be read.
4. All the main tags - html, head, body must be in every template.
5. Scripts must be loaded from separate js files (with the exception of metrics and analytics scripts).
6. Do not leave large pieces of commented code in the layout (it is optimal to remove all comments at the stage of outputting the html code).
7. Do not use visual and logical highlighting tags (strong, b, i, em) for design in design blocks.
8. Do not use h1-h6 headers for cross-cutting blocks in the footer, header, sidebar, and modal windows.
9. We use only one heading h1 on the page and after h1 - already h2 and then according to the structure of the text.
10. For meta tags title, description and ALT attribute for images - if there are double quotes in the descriptions of these tags - change them to “herringbone quotes” so that the code is valid and can be read correctly by the PS.
11. All CSS styles should be moved out of the page body into separate files.

5. Formation of CNC for website pages

Key points when forming CNC:

1. Page addresses should not be long;
2. NC must consist of Latin letters, symbols and numbers;
3. Separate words in the address with a hyphen. Spaces and underscores (_) should not be used, as search engines may not read such URLs well (in particular, Google may ignore spellings with underscores);
4. Do not use ! % ( ) " ';
5. Use key queries in CNC;
6. CNCs of the same type with parameters must be written using a mask, for example, parameters like “290x95x82” can be represented as: 290x95x82 or 290-95-82.

General requirements for page addresses (URL):

1. Single format for all site addresses;
2. Transliteration of Cyrillic text;

6. Setting up the https protocol

To increase user security and trust, it is recommended to configure the HTTPS protocol on the site.

7. Website merging (redirects)

Gluing the domain together

The site should open either with www or without www.

We register a 301 redirect to the main mirror of the site.

We also add a 301 redirect from index.php / index.html / index.htm to the root of the site

Glueing the inner pages

1. Internal pages should open to only one address, either with a / at the end or without a /. Preferred option with / at the end. We put a 301 redirect to one of the options.
2. If pages, in addition to a slash at the end, can open with different extensions at the end like php, html, htm, we also set redirects to a unique URL with / at the end.

Gluing https and http

From all variants of http and from one variant with https (with www or without www), you need to register a redirect to the main mirror of the site with https.

8. Setting up a 404 error page

We create a page with a 404 error, not in the site design https://yandex.ru/support/ metrica/stand-out/informative-page-404.html

Pages that don't exist should return a 404 error code.

9. Correct links to internal pages in code

If we have links to internal pages from / at the end, then they should be written in the code exactly so that unnecessary 301 redirects are not generated.

10. External links to third party resources

Close in noindex and nofollow, add opening in a new window.
http://site.ru" rel="nofollow" > Anchor

11. Setting up pagination

1. set up your meta tags on pagination pages (add to title, description - page 2,3...);
2. we do not transfer text from the main catalog page (the text should not be duplicated on pagination pages);
3. we do not make page No. 1, since it will be a complete duplicate of the main page of the section: that is, we set up a 301 redirect from the page with the page=1 parameter to the main section;
4. we configure Canonical on pagination pages to the main section (optional) or for pagination pages we write a robots meta tag with the parameters noindex, follow;

12. Page loading speed

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
https://gtmetrix.com/

We use caching

We optimize the images (the files should not be large in size and the resolution of the images should correspond to the displayed one, so that, for example, for an image that is displayed with a resolution of 300x200, a file with a resolution of 1200x800 will not be loaded).

We optimize js, css files and the code in them (merge, minify)

Add gzip compression (test: https://www.giftofspeed.com/gzip-test/)

13. Bread crumbs

Add “Breadcrumbs” to all pages of the site except the main one (without the last crumb duplicating H1/page title)

The names of the crumbs should not coincide with H1 and the title of the section completely

14. Required fields in the site admin for SEO

To make content optimization easier, it is recommended to add separate fields for SEO in the site’s admin panel:

1. Page title
2. Field for title
3. For description
4. For H1
5. For texts (if an online store, there should be text blocks before and after listing products)
6. CNC field
7. Field for 301 redirect
8. Field for the name of the bread crumb
9. Field for menu item
10. Ability to set meta tags using a template.
11. H1 must not be the same as title
12. It should be possible to make h1, breadcrumb, and menu item name different.

15. Favicon

Add a favicon in SVG format or 120 × 120 pixels https://yandex.ru/support/webmaster/ search-results/create-favicon.html

16. Micromarkup Schema.org

To structure data on a website, it is recommended to use micro markup according to the Schema.org specification.

Organization, breadcrumbs, articles, reviews, product cards, etc. depending on the type of page.
https://yandex.ru/support/webmaster/schema-org/what- is-schema-org.html

17. Opengraph

To improve the presentation of the site on social networks, you should add Open Graph micro markup

https://yandex.ru/support/webmaster/open-graph/

18. Checking the site for critical errors

Before publishing the site, it is recommended to check the code for validity and the absence of critical errors.

https://validator.w3.org/

There shouldn't be too many mistakes.

19. Analysis of the site for errors in the browser console

You need to check the site for errors and warnings that are displayed in the console of various browsers. If such errors exist, it is necessary to take measures to eliminate them.

20. In the tag we write the lang

In the site's HTML code, it is recommended to specify the page language using the lang attribute.

21. Cross-browser compatibility, responsiveness, optimization for mobile devices

The site must be displayed correctly on various devices, be cross-browser and adaptive, optimized for mobile devices.

Check optimization for mobile devices

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

22. Privacy Policy

Presence in forms with the collection of personal data - checkboxes for consent to data processing under Federal Law No. 152 with a link to the conf policy page.

23. ALT attribute for images

All images on the site must contain an ALT attribute with a suitable description + automatic completion in those places where it can be added (for example, substituting the name of a product/section)